


Coats and Boots of Dragonhide

by rufeepeach



Category: Once Upon A Time - Fandom
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-24
Updated: 2012-04-24
Packaged: 2017-11-04 06:20:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rufeepeach/pseuds/rufeepeach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle decides to try her hand at being the Dark One.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coats and Boots of Dragonhide

**Author's Note:**

> A completely unserious version of all these lovely reverse-Skin Deep, Dark One!Belle fics.

__

She stands before the mirror, admires the way her skin gleams, the delicate lines of supple leather pulled taught across her limbs.

Her hair is darker, now, than it was before. She used to wear flowers in her tousled curls, but they are dead and gone now. All that is left is a flow of tangled briars and thorns, the colour of charred wood after a thunderstorm.

Her blood red lips curve, smirking to herself, and she wonders when this wickedness was born, whether there is still a knight’s daughter, a kind and gentle princess, within her at all.

Was this evil always a part of her, or did it come from the dragonhide coat, the long golden nails?

She imagines hordes of desperate, weeping, dying souls scattered at her feet. She kicks them aside with her heavy, pointed boots; sweeps her long coat to cover them all in smoke and ashes.

She sees cowering princes in opulent palaces, and kings with high ransoms placed above their heads.

She snaps her fingers, summons a spell, a world of knowledge, of the elemental strategies of destruction magic, swirls at her fingertips. She spins deals of silver – because gold was always a little bright, a little _gauche_ – with one hand while inciting whole wars, battles to be one and lost, with a flick of the other.

She is strength, now.

No more grovelling kitchen maid, cast far below her station by the force of newfound poverty. No more weak and trembling woman; screams torn from her throat, echoing through castle walls, helpless and alone. No more ogres at the gate, nor children on the battlefield.

These are the pasts she weaves from memories and dead air. The history this heavy leather allows her to forget, to weave into new powers, new strengths.

She strides from the room, down through her castle. Her servant must have awakened by now: he rises as the sun does; he has more sunshine in his soul than he knows.

But the palace is silent, and the air is cold.

And without her servant, her _Rumpelstiltskin_ , to fix her tea, or fetch her chosen books, or spin at his spinning wheel – the only possession she allows him to keep as his own in her lair – or grovel at her feet with such pretty fear, she is empty and alone.

This life is lonely, powerful and monstrous and bone-crushingly isolating.

This armour was built to keep out spells and phoenix fire, to force ice curses to melt and poison to roll off like water on goose feathers.

It was also designed to keep the power within, and the rest of the world at bay.

This life can be beautiful, and the freedoms of power are addictive, but it’s better with two.

A master and their servant, more companion and friend than chattel won in a deal or slave to scurry and hide in corners. Equals in mind and soul if not in body.

On a good day; sometimes, it’s fun simply to lord her powers over him. She sweeps out an arm, makes a low and delicate curtsey, mocks an entire audience of men who believe her tainted and ruined, that a woman’s place is in a ridiculous concoction of golden silk and heavy jewels. She turns them all to toads with one look, and-

“Having fun, dearie?”

She spins in the hallway, where she’s worked her way around the grand table to stand at the window. The door is open, a familiar figure leans there, lips wide and smirking, eyes dark.

He was supposed to be in Agrabah for at least another week. The bastard snuck home when she wasn’t looking.

“Yes, as a matter of fact.” She holds her head up, refuses to cower. He doesn’t seem annoyed, just amused, and she hopes he stays that way.

She does the laundry every other day. How long did he expect her to wait to settle in before she started stealing bits and pieces? It wasn’t as if the man ever noticed what was or was not in his wardrobe anyway.

“Hmmm,” he dances around the table, comes to stand right before her. He holds a strand of her snarled and backcombed hair before her eyes, and breathes, “Well, the hair dye was a nice touch. What is this, henna?”

“Coffee and black tea,” she answers, and feels the blush rising in her cheeks.

“And these,” he drops her hair and takes her hand to examine her nails, so close he could almost kiss the knuckles, “However did you get your nails to change colour?”

“There were paints hidden in one of the bedrooms. It’ll wash off.”

“Good…” he nods, and for a moment everything is quiet, the air thick and heavy and warm.

Then he smiles, wide and manic, “Your impression of me was a little… lacking, dearie,” he says as he almost leaps backwards and does a little spin on his heel, “You needed a little more _panache._ ” He does a ridiculously over-the-top hand gesture to demonstrate, and indicates that she follow.

She gets halfway toward true mimicry before she collapses into gales of laughter, “Okay, fine. You win.” She makes a deep and mocking bow, hands flipped out at the side to add a touch of Rumpelstiltskin-esque drama, “I’ll put your clothes back.”

She starts to walk away – and she’s not _trying_ to make her hips swing, or her hair swish, it’s the damn boots making her walk differently – but his voice seems a little higher pitched, almost strangled, when he calls “Oh, never mind, dearie!”

She spins to face him, and these boots are at least good for that, “I’m sorry?”

“As well you should be, but those clothes are now all… stretched and fitted to your… shape. They no longer fit me. You may as well keep them.”

He brushes her off with a hand wave, and turns away, and she takes off for her room as fast as these ridiculous heels can carry her. But she’s sure she didn’t miss the implication that he’d be all right with her wearing spike stiletto heels and skin-tight leather more often.


End file.
